


she breathes, she burns

by kimaracretak



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/F, POV Second Person, i haven't figured out what toby's doing here, mostly because i have cj/andy/toby thoughts that have yet to be properly articulated, probable overuse of commas and semicolons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:26:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1453699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CJ and Andy falling through the years, and what they find along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she breathes, she burns

It is summer in Los Angeles, and Andrea Wyatt is about to do something reckless.

 

( _fall in_ )

 

You met at Berkeley and clicked, right away, _clicksparkclick_ because Andy was magnetic and city-light while you were suburban-grey and wanting. It was hard not to get caught up in her whirlwind back then, back when you had flowers in your hair as a pale pathetic _pick me_ cry to the radicals of early-eighties Northern California whom you loved and hated and adored and shrank from in equal measure – except not Andy. Not Andy, because she smiled at you like she saw you; not Andy, because Andy lifted you up onto the line between studiousness and adventures and held your hand while you walked it, at least at first. So, it was easy to fall in with Andy.

That was the winter you first kissed, hiding out under the pier, all tangled up in each other's laps with a bottle of wine. Her mouth was slick and hot under yours, and you couldn't tell if the roaring in your ears was the ocean or your own blood, chasing after Andy when she pulled away just long enough to say _Claudia Jean_ before kissing you again, and again. Her eyes were the colour of the sea and you were falling in, falling in.

Then there were the summers, the summers you were twenty and twenty-one and the world was waiting for you. There were summers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, summers when Andy tasted like raspberries, summers when you grew into politics and PR and followed along with Andy to whatever cause she had thrown herself heart and mind and soul into and tripped a little bit less each year. Those were the summers when you fell in (love _(with her)_ ).

( _fall out_ )

And you lost her after, lost her for a bit in the way you lose college friends, because she went to New York and you went to Chicago and the calls weren't frequent enough and the time off even rarer; you spent the times in between un-learning how to call out her name at every flash of red hair (it was harder than you thought it would be).

You were happy enough, then, you had friends and connections and your corporate employer was a little bit further along the ethical spectrum than most of the other ones, and it's enough. You missed Andy, wished she could see the person you were becoming in Chicago, the person you would never have had the confidence to become if it wasn't for her. The days ran through your fingers and you slipped through the months and there was an ease to it that you had never quite managed back at school with Andy because Andy was arrow-sharp and had hard corners where you bent diplomatically. It was nice, enough, and you met boys with shining eyes and girls with painted lips and took them to bed, but none of them were Andy, none of them _clicksparkclick_ ed like she did when you kissed in California rain.

And maybe it really wasn't meant to last, because it wasn't long before you were falling out, falling out with your friends, your boss, your new Chicago-self. Falling out, and Andy wasn't there to catch you like she was back in school.

 

( _fall in, fall out_ )

 

Until she was. You had moved back to Los Angeles, taking a Hollywood job because it fit with your newfound talent for spin; she was stalking City Hall with a legislative agenda perfectly tuned to embarrass Southern California's most liberal city. She was failing, right then, fierce and furious Andrea Wyatt who had tumbled headlong into every cause she could find no matter what her prospects, while you just got by. But it didn't matter, right then, because you quite literally ran into her down on the Santa Monica pier, and you saw her hair and said, _Andy,_ before you realized you weren't supposed to do that anymore. And she turned around and it was her, it was Andy just like you remembered, her eyes just as bright and her lips just as red; it was _clicksparkclick_ all over again even though this time the ocean was blue and you were both a little older.

You fell in again, for a day, a week, a month, and it was more comfortable than it ever was at school. There was an apartment, that time, there was a part of the Pacific that you could swim in; there were star-studded parties in the moonlight and the two of you in formal dresses that were killer on your bodies but beautiful pooled on the floor while she knelt between your legs and made you come again, and again _(she is a_ _masterful_ _cartographer, her tongue_ _still_ _remembers the patterns it traced out years ago and you'd forgotten, you'd forgotten it could ever be this good)_ ; the two of you were silhouettes against a smog-streaked sky that meant possibilities and Andy and flying instead of falling.

And then you fell anyway, because Andy left. You had known it was coming since the beginning, had known Andy's time in Los Angeles was limited to the few months before she was going to announce her candidacy in the Maryland 5th, but you had thought – some selfish little part of you had thought that maybe you could change her mind, maybe she would stay. But she didn't. She left you and she left Hollywood and you watched her sweep up her district into her whirlwind and never once look back. You – you went back to pulling the strings behind Hollywood's biggest stars, and you were good at it. You didn't examine your feelings about Andy's refusal to ask you to come with her too much. You didn't want to know what your answer would have been.

 

( _fall out, fall in_ )

 

She married Toby, and you didn't bother feeling jealous – there was only so long an unmarried woman could last in office in Baltimore, even then. They were friends; even you couldn't deny that Toby was a wonderful man, and if Andy looked painfully lonely standing beside him at campaign events and fundraisers, well, maybe only you could see that. Maybe only you could imagine it, a continent away in your Los Feliz house, arching under your own fingers on top of the same sheets you used to fuck her on, the same sheets that you liked to think still held some trace of her.

You wondered if she was falling, too.

You wondered if she hated you for not being there to catch her.

Toby came to you and asked you to work for Andy's favoured presidental candidate, and you almost laughed in his face. But you had just lost your job, and the California sun was becoming too much for you without Andy, you were fading under its light without Andy's spark and everyone could tell. Maybe it was fitting, after all, that the man who Andy left you for was the one to bring you back to her. So you said yes. And then you won the election.

And here's the funny thing – that didn't last long. She didn't last with Toby. Go-for-broke Andrea Wyatt, who put everything she had into everything she did, fell out with Toby. She fell back into the Congressional milieu with ease and grace, went looking for fights and laughed when they finally showed up. You watched her a lot those first years, envied her the cool expertise that she had had years to perfect before your administration stumbled in to the White House. You wondered how long it would be before you could move through Washington like she did, how long it would be before you figured out who and what you and she were supposed to be in this new city.

You figured out the first one quickly enough, you were always good at trials by fire, but the second one – maybe you never really did figure that one out. You marked the months by allies gained and friends lost and through it all Andy was the one constant _(Carol perfects the art of locking the door behind Andy whenever she walks into your office; you watch Andy tremble under your fingers you wonder how much Carol knows, how much Carol would like to watch)_. Your administration faltered, failed, you stood in front of the press corps and rebuilt it with every word out of your mouth while Andy brought the House in line.

You fell in together and survived, everything.

 

( _fall in_ )

 

Which brings you to now: it is summer in Los Angeles, and Andrea Wyatt is about to do something reckless.

There's nothing particularly new about either of those ideas – it's been summer in Los Angeles since last summer, and Andrea Wyatt has been five seconds away from doing something reckless since she was three years old. Nor is there anything new about the implied correlation: you know all too well how LA pushes you into the biggest, brightest version of yourself that exists and sweeps you along to the edge of your comfort zone and beyond in the process. You still remember the heady, hazy days you lived together in LA, and how hard it was for both of you to stop yourselves from falling back into those days every time you came to southern California for the campaigns.

But it is different this time.

She says, _I'm going to be president._

She says, _I want you to run with me._

Andy stands on tiptoes at the very edge of the pier, impossibly balanced on the lowest rung of the railing, arms outstretched ready to fall in _, fall in, fall in._

You step up beside her.

You take her hand.

 


End file.
